Luke

I have had a lot on my mind over the past few days. A good friend recently passed away. I don’t really have much of a platform to discuss what’s going through my mind and how I feel so I’m going to use this.

Luke was many things to many people, just as we all are. To most he was an amazing guitarist. Luke was by far the best guitarist I’ve ever known. In his few short years on earth and his few years playing the guitar he has already mastered it far beyond what most people could ever dream. I personally feel that he was better than a lot of professionals out there today. Luke loved music and it showed. Every time I talked to Luke the conversation would always turn to music somehow, and usually ended in a conversation about Tourniquet, Stryper, Demon Hunter, Killswitch Engage, or any other band out there that had good guitar in it. Luke always has been and always will be a musical inspiration to me. He was amazing in that respect.

Luke was more than just a good musician, he was also an amazing Christian. Luke was not trained or taught in the inner circles of theology or Biblical study, yet he always loved to learn about that stuff. He loved to discuss the things of God on a deeper level than just what you’d hear at church. He was one of the few people that I would talk to and know that I didn’t have to be afraid of getting too deep or to serious because when it came to God Luke just wanted to soak it all in and talk about it as long as we could. This was another area where Luke was an inspiration and always will be. At first I thought he was a musician and that’s all most musicians care about, but then he joined Bible quizzing. Luke was by far the best quizzer on his team. I remember sitting down with him a church camp one year and he was excited because we had just received our quizzing books for that year. We sat down and started memorizing the verses even though the quizzing season was months away. That was Luke, hungry for God and His Word.

A few years ago I was excited to find out that Luke and I would be going to the same college. I was blessed to spend that time with him. During that first year at school we had the opportunity to play in a worship band together and I was again blessed to be a musician playing with someone as talented as Luke. I was also blessed with long car rides from the school to church and back. This is where Luke and I help most of our deeper discussions. Luke was fun and serious all at the same time. Luke was unique and there will never be anyone like him.

A few weeks ago I was looking for a guitarist to help me out in a service. My thoughts immediately went to Luke. I gave Luke a call to see if there was anyway he was going to be able to help me out, but it was too short notice and kind of a far drive from his apartment. That was okay, and it was actually the response I had expected, but I took the opportunity to talk to Luke and find out what was going on in his life. He told me everything was good. He spoke some about school and Jessica and some about some friends we had in common. As all our conversations did, we soon started talking about music as he told me about this new awesome band he was playing in and how he felt like this was going somewhere and how successful he thought it would be. He talked about the band for awhile and was excited about it, but then got even more excited as he told about a Bible study he had started for the band and he was very excited about how God was going to use that. That was Luke. He was very passionate about his music, but he was more passionate about God.